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A new survey reveals key findings concerning the use of tablets, eReaders, apps, and smartphones among nursing professors and practitioners. The annual survey was conducted by Springer Publishing Company, which polled about 1,000 nurses on their ownership and usage of mobile devices, their preferences for nursing and medical apps and eBooks, and their favorite websites for professional use.

2013 Nursing Digital Usage

These trends present a great opportunity for industries serving health care professionals, and point to more demand for content on mobile devices.

New York, NY (PRWEB)April 24, 2014

A new survey reveals key findings concerning the use of tablets, eReaders, apps, and smartphones among nursing professors and practitioners. The annual survey was conducted by Springer Publishing Company, which polled about 1,000 nurses on their ownership and usage of mobile devices, their preferences for nursing and medical apps and eBooks, and their favorite websites for professional use.

One of the 2013 survey’s key findings was a jump from last year in smartphone, tablet, and eBook reader ownership by survey respondents, the slight majority of which were nurse educators (56%), the remaining others being mostly nurse practitioners. This year’s survey found that 83% of respondents own a smartphone (up from 71% last year), 43% own an eBook reader (up from 39%) and 63% own a tablet (a jump from 47%). As with previous years, although the Amazon Kindle was the clear lead for most popular eBook reader (70% of those who own eBook readers own a Kindle), and the Amazon Kindle Store was the most popular eBookstore from which to purchase eBooks, only about 21% of those who read eBooks reported even reading them on an eReader, much less a Kindle. Instead, computers (49%) and tablets (41%) were the most popular devices on which to read an eBook. As expected, the significant majority of those who owned a tablet reported owning an iPad (68%).

Although eReader and tablet use seem to have climbed among the nursing community, only about 21% of survey responders indicated that they had purchased a nursing or medical eBook in the past six months. More popular were professional apps, with 55% (up from 49% last year) indicating that they had downloaded a nursing or medical app in the last six months. The most popular apps among the nursing respondents were MedScape and Epocrates.

The survey also polled participants on the websites they use for professional purposes. LinkedIn scored highly (48%) but was, more surprisingly, closely followed by YouTube (40%). Nurse.com (29%) and Facebook (27%) were also very popular websites for professional use.

“Although there are some similarities between this year’s survey results and last year’s,” commented Pascal Schwarzer, the Vice President of Digital Business Development at Springer Publishing Company, “one major finding this year is the significant increase in mobile device ownership, especially in smartphone and tablet ownership. As may be expected, particularly considering this jump in smartphone and tablet use, app use has also increased.” Schwarzer added, “These trends present a great opportunity for industries serving health care professionals, and point to more demand for content on mobile devices. We, for one, are pleased to be doing our part to meet the growing needs of this community through our eBooks and aggressive digital product development program.”

A pioneer in health care and social science publishing, Springer Publishing Company is known as an innovative nursing, public health, psychology, rehabilitation, social work, counseling, and gerontology publisher. The company has won numerous awards, including the American Library Association (ALA) Choice Awards, the Association of American Publishers (AAP) PROSE Awards, and the American Journal of Nursing (AJN) Book of the Year Awards, and publishes more than 100 top quality titles annually, all available as eBooks, in addition to 21 journals. From nursing to psychology, Springer Publishing Company is passionate about providing the best professional books, textbooks, guides, and reference works to professionals, instructors, and students. For more information, visit http://www.springerpub.com.